Trade nearing its official completion

By

Peter Abraham

August 25, 2012

By Peter Abraham, Globe Staff

The deal is done but not yet announced. Josh Beckett has agreed to waive his 10-5 rights according to a major league source and Carl Crawford agreed to the deal as well. He had limited no-trade protection.

The Red Sox are going to be responsible for only $10-12 million of the $272 million they owed to Adrian Gonzalez, Carl Crawford, Josh Beckett and Nick Punto.

The commissioner’s office has to approve the cash payment the Red Sox are making. Once that is official, the announcements will come.

This will be, arguably, the most historically significant trade the Sox have made since selling Babe Ruth to the Yankees.

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That trade changed the franchise for the worse. This deal offers the opportunity for the Red Sox to remake a team that has been in steady decline since the 2007 World Series title.

It’ll be fascinating to see what happens next. But as Red Sox fans wake up today, their team has a brighter future than it did 24 hours ago.

Here’s some background on each player from Nick Cafardo’s On Baseball column this morning:

Loney is a free agent at the end of the season. He’s never quite lived up to his billing. He’s a line-drive hitter with marginal power, but did drive in 90 runs twice and 88 once. He was hitting .254 with four homers and 33 RBIs when he was yanked from Friday night’s lineup. Red Sox third base coach Jerry Royster instructed Loney early in his career.

Sands is a big guy (6 feet 4 inches, 225 pounds), and a righthanded hitter who has put up impressive minor league numbers — 35 home runs one season, and 24 homers with 101 RBIs this season at Triple A Albuquerque — but it’s never translated to the majors. Would a short porch in Fenway bring that out? That’s the hope. The Dodgers projected him as a fourth outfielder who can play some first. They aren’t sweating this loss.

De La Rosa, 23, seems to be the prize. He once threw 100 miles per hour, before blowing out his elbow last year and undergoing Tommy John surgery. When he returned to the Dodgers Aug. 22, he was throwing 96 and still had an outstanding throwing motion. The Red Sox watched him that night. One of the issues with De La Rosa is that he likely cannot be traded at this time. It appears the Sox and Dodgers would have to make a separate deal at the end of the season because he was claimed on waivers by the Blue Jays, and then pulled back. Because he did not clear waivers, he will not officially be in this trade.

Webster was the pitcher the Dodgers would not include in the Ryan Dempster deal with the Cubs. He is generally considered the Dodgers’ second-best pitching prospect, and is 6-8 with a 3.55 ERA at Double A Chattanooga. It appears the Sox were trying to get pitching prospect Zach Lee in this deal but were unable to do so.

A righthanded-hitting utility infielder, De Jesus has never shown great promise after a home plate collision slowed his career path.

According to players at Fenway Park, Gonzalez, Beckett, and Punto are already en route to Los Angeles.